$300 dollar machine

[johnspon]

I honestly know computers, but the buying of pieces, I tend to not worry about, so I need your assistance.

I need to buy the following components.
1) Case
2) Motherboard
3) Processor
4) RAM
5) Hard Drive

I have all other pieces needed.

What would you get, for around $300 (It can go over $300, but that is the goal)

John

[BigBlue66]

I would go with a barebones system that will usually include the case, power supply, motherboard, processor and RAM. You can pick and choose the components. With your budget, you will have to go with a less fast processor, maybe a Celeron or Duron.

www.accessmicro.com

www.computersurplusoutlet.com

[mordsithus]

Another thing u may want to checkout is

www.pricewatch.com. (http://)

It keeps track of current prices and lists many items that are very cheap, but must phone in the order to et that item at a certain price.

[johnspon]

I found an
AMD Xp 1700+ (1.5 ghz...)
Case
Soyo SY-K7ADA Motherboard

for $199.

Then I need a drive and ram...the above is a pretty good buy, but I jsut dont know much about the motherboard...

[Lycia]

If you want the best price, dump the celeron and go with the Duron. The Duron outperforms the Celeron in every instance. Plus it's cheaper. I've seen side by side comparisons of the Duron with an equal mhz'd PIII and they've run neck and neck...if I can find it, I will post it...

[RayH]

If you're looking for a simple, but reliable computer. For $300 easy, you can get a:

Asus TUIS-M All-in-One MB= <$60
Celeron 1.2 GB (256K Cache)=$70
256 MB PC133=$50
Case=$25
HD 20-40 GB=$60-75

Probably give most people on this board a heart attack talking about using generic parts. But this machine will boot to XP immediately after installation, although there will be some immediate updates from Microsoft.

[elroy]

Checkout www.pricewatch.com
follow the link SYSTEMS> PC- Windows they have some complete Duron 900 systems shipped to you with Windows ME for $300
And definitely go with an AMD Duron over a Celeron.

[RayH]

The system I'm recommending I KNOW works because I've built a couple for people on a tight budget with basic computing needs. Actually, I'm amazed at the features of the board.

The Asus TUIS-M is a jumperless micor ATX Tualatin board, supporting any Socket 370 P3 or Celeron; SiS 630 ET chipset, supporting up to 64 MB shard video; hardware acceleration for DVD; CMedia audio w/ inputs for two CD devices; LAN; 2 DIMM slots (PC100/133) up to 1 GB support; supports ATA 100; and 3 PCI slots. There is no independent AGP slot. But for a mobo that costs about the same as a good sound card, it ain't bad.

Amazingly, this board not only works. But it will work in a cheap case with generic RAM. This is the system I recommend for people on a tight budget.

As I also noted, it will be supported by Windows XP. I slapped in a Diamond Supra Max modem. The whole thing was installed by the OS. It actually was the easiest system I've ever built.